It’s no secret that online video is under the industry microscope more than ever, as consumers are exploring new ways to find TV content online and companies are searching for ideal business models in a rapidly changing TV landscape. Some key findings and analysis this week from Nielsen, and an article from the Silicon Alley Insider, raised some interesting points regarding consumer behaviors toward online video. Specifically, Nielsen’s measurement of the “most addictive Web video sites” showed Netflix taking the lead when it came to time spent per viewer, with a noteworthy 200+ minutes of viewership in February, while Hulu held the sixth spot (about 175 minutes per user). YouTube landed further down the list (less than 100 minutes per month) given its focus on shorter form content (though that may change down the road with their recent content deal).Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve been there. Princeton. Columbia. Harvard Law. The white-shoe law firm of Sidley Austin. The US Senate. You know what it’s like to be that raisin in the milk, the rare black face at an elite institution.

As your daughters come of age at the top prep school in our nation’s capital, they will likely face the same raisin-in-the-milk trials and awkwardness with which you are likely familiar and I most certainly am; I attended the same school, Sidwell Friends, for six years, graduating in 1995.

There are some important differences between my Sidwell experience and what your daughters will face, of course.

Cerberus Capital Management is the majority shareholder in both GMAC and Chysler. Despite, owning 80% of Chrysler and 51% of GMAC, Cerebrus, which has holdings worth $24 billion, has refused to inject their own capital into the failing companies, opting instead to lobby for government bailouts. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, however, since the chairman of Cerberus is John Snow, George W. Bush’s former Treasury Secretary.

Zachary Seward of the Nieman Journalism Lab writes about a survey by the Bivings Group that reveals trends in online newspaper websites. For example, the number of newspapers that required readers to register in order to access online content dropped from 29 in 2007 to 11 in 2008.

Registration can be useful in customizing websites and collecting data for advertisers, but users mostly just find it annoying. Newspaper sites once embraced the technique, and registration actually rose from 23 of the top 100 in 2006 to 29 in 2007, according to Bivings. That trend appears to have completely reversed itself.

However, only one of the top 100 newspaper websites runs ads in its RSS feed.

As promised, here are some interviews the TV on Your PC team conducted with local bloggers and media in the Seattle area. The interviews were conducted at a media roundtable dubbed “The Pitch” at Lucid in the University District of Seattle a couple of weeks ago.

Megan Taylor’s been cleaning up her hard drive, and she found a swell essay she wrote months ago on getting your news via mobile:

What kind of content might one want to see on a phone?

Weather and traffic alerts, events, and big, huge, breaking news. Seriously, the feature article can wait till I get home. But if a criminal is running around my neighborhood with a gun, I’d like to know, ASAP.

What about multimedia? I don’t see myself using my phone to go through a complex multimedia package. A video or slideshow, maybe, if I’m really interested. But phones are about “right now” communication. That should be reflected in how news companies approach them.

She goes on to ask several journalists how they get their news when they’re on the go. It’s an interesting read.

Jason Preston expresses irritation at journalists who use social media for research, but don’t publicly participate in it themselves. The practice is, in his words, “creepy”.

Participation is the number one ingredient for getting value from new social media tools. And if people find out that you’re logged in and poking around (in other words, the digital equivalent of wandering around in people’s back yards and looking through the windows), they’re not going to be too quick to invite you into their home.

Meanwhile, Teresa Valdez Klein got a couple of glasses of wine in her and decided to turn a frozen apartment swimming pool into some winter magic. Lovely!

“[O]ne of my favorite bits is the way they do location-based polling using the iPhone’s current location feature. You can drill down in poll answers by state and city, based on where poll responses came from.”

Meanwhile, Travis Hay of Ear candy rounds up his favorite songs from 2008 by Seattle artists, with embedded videos and inks to audio where available. The list includes a track that is INCREDIBLY appropriate for Seattle right now: “White Winter Hymnal” by the Fleet Foxes:

Cheryl Contee, aka Jill Tubman of Jack & Jill Politics, announced that she is leading a Q&A session with Professor Lawrence Lessig tonight at Netroots Nation’s 5th regional salon. The event starts at 7:15 p.m. Pacific time and ends at about 8:30 p.m.

Two recent posts about online video, a subject of profound interest to us here at the Roundup for obvious reasons:

At Eat Sleep Publish, Jason Preston wrote about a recent study conducted by Forrester called “Watching the Web: How Online Video Engages Audiences” and possible parallels within the publishing industry:

…[F]or the purposes of the study, one hour per week is the gateway to being an “engaged viewer.” And the difference between an engaged viewer and a non-engaged viewer is dramatic.

Engaged viewers, first of all, make up about 40% of all online video customers, and are responsible almost 75% of all web video consumption. These viewers are also twice as likely to recall in-video, pre-roll, and post-roll ads than non-engaged viewers.

…But I’m willing to bet that the statistics on ad effectiveness apply towards other mediums as well. An engaged reader will probably remember a print ad more often than random passers by.

I’m focusing on TPM’s business model in this post and one last Tuesday because I think their steady growth from blogger-with-a-day-job to a profitable, 14-person news organization could have broader implications for journalism on the Internet. TPM Media LLC is a rare news company whose entire business has grown up around the web economy. The site has also found success with online video in ways that outstrip most newspaper sites.